From the Archive: A British Television Podcast

From the Archive is a British television podcast that has an emphasis on British television preservation, restoration, archiving, and missing episodes of our favourite series. The podcast focuses on series generally from the 1950s to 1990s.
If you have feedback or questions you would like to have read on the podcast or general inquiries, please contact us at feedback@fromthearchive.co.uk. This podcast is a co-production between From the Archive: A British Television Blog and Kaleidoscope. Thank you for listening to it.

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It’s a pretty special episode of the podcast to have both Doctor Who and The Beatles in the same episode and generally talking about the same subject: off-air audio recordings from television broadcasts!

Back in December of 2018, Kaleidoscope announced that they were given a number of off-air audio recordings of Doctor Who episodes from the 1960s. These were given to us by Robert Wyn and have since been dubbed “The Randolph Tapes” as the name Randolph appears on the tapes themselves. Mark Ayres kindly stepped in and had a listen and was impressed by the quality. We wanted to share the background and analysis of these recordings by talking to Doctor Who Researcher Robert Franks about what he thought of them. Of course, we include clips so you can hear them yourself plus some rarities from the tapes you may never have heard before unless you were watching at the time of broadcast.

We move onto that unknown Liverpudlian group known as The Beatles. Of course we jest but we have a great conversation with author and Beatles expert Keith Badman about off-air audio recordings of missing television appearances by the Fab Four plus so much more. The idea of missing music programs (apart from Top of the Pops) sometimes gets overlooked in favour of other series but Keith’s knowledge of the subject is very intriguing! Plus, we are happy to include some very rare clips of The Beatles from the Kaleidoscope archives.

If that wasn’t enough, how about a brand-new missing off-air audio discovery of a television broadcast featuring The Rolling Stones? You want to know what it is? Well, you’ll have to listen and let Neil Ingoe tell you!

If you have feedback or questions you would like to have read on the podcast or general inquiries, please contact us at feedback@fromthearchive.co.uk. We would love to hear from you! This podcast is a co-production between From the Archive: A British Television Blog and Kaleidoscope. Thank you for listening.

We could litter the description of this episode with loads of famous Dad’s Army catchphrases but this series is so much more than that. Now, 50 years after its first broadcast, it is still entertaining people around the world with a very healthy following. We wanted to celebrate this series!

First off, we wanted to talk with someone from the cast of the show and immediately Frank Williams came to mind! Frank perfectly played the role of the Vicar from Series 3 onwards. He graciously gave us his time to talk with him and he didn’t disappoint! He talked extensively about his time on Dad’s Army, The Army Game, writing and acting in general!

In keeping with the archive theme to this podcast, we had wonderful conversation with Martin Geraghty. Martin worked on the animated Dad’s Army episode “A Stripe for Frazer” as well as on the animated Doctor Who stories “The Power of the Daleks” and “Shada”. We talk about all of it.

Finally, you may hear some Dad’s Army rarities. We just wanted to sprinkle some stuff in the episode that maybe most of you have not heard before that might make this episode just a little extra special!

If you have feedback or questions you would like to have read on the podcast or general inquiries, please contact us at feedback@fromthearchive.co.uk. We would love to hear from you! This podcast is a co-production between From the Archive: A British Television Blog and Kaleidoscope. Thank you for listening.

BBC Television Centre has a place in many of hearts that adore British television. When news came about its closure, it upset many that the BBC would leave such an iconic location. A wonderful documentary was produced before it closed. Directed by Richard Marson, Tales of Television Centre, brought together a wide spectrum of people who worked most of their careers there to bring us some of the warmest memories of our “concrete donut”. We talk with Richard about the making of this documentary and what it was like making it, creating the tone of the piece and an insight on what the BBC wanted to name it just prior to transmission! This is the first of a few conversations with will have with Richard and this is a fun one to listen to about Television Centre!

We also talk to Andrew Gavaghan who is the Archive Manager to the ITV archives. Conducted on location at the ITV Archive in Leeds in December of 2017, Andrew gives is an insight into the workings of the archives. It’s a great conversation!

If you have feedback or questions you would like to have read on the podcast or general inquiries, please contact us at feedback@fromthearchive.co.uk. We would love to hear from you! This podcast is a co-production between From the Archive: A British Television Blog and Kaleidoscope. Thank you for listening.

Doctor Who has an established history of DVD sets chocked full of amazing extras and interesting documentaries about the series’ past. Now, as classic Doctor Who enters the realm of Blu-ray sets by season, how do they top themselves?

This episode of From the Archive: A British Television Podcast, takes a look at how the team lead by Russell Minton decided to evolve the range to not only make it more appealing to fans but unleash the floodgates of archive material never made available to the public before now.

We talk with Russell Minton about his vision for these sets, Richard Bignell about the research and work that went into providing the loads of archive material to this set that has never been available to fans before now, Ed Stradling about updating old documentaries and making new ones for this set, and Derek Handley who not only talks about the work that goes into the photo galleries but also the BBC Photographic Library and his work tracking down photos we have not seen before for the sets.

We also talk to Stephen Cranford who was a close friend to Graham Strong who recently passed away. Graham gave us the gift of crystal clear audio recordings to many missing Doctor Who episodes and we pay tribute to his legacy and find out more about who Graham was.

It’s a very interesting episode that shows off the sheer amount of work that goes into some of our favourite extras on the classic Doctor Who DVD & Blu-ray range.

If you have feedback or questions you would like to have read on the podcast or general inquiries, please contact us at feedback@fromthearchive.co.uk. We would love to hear from you! This podcast is a co-production between From the Archive: A British Television Blog and Kaleidoscope. Thank you for listening.

When we think of Lost TV Shows, it’s possible that the same 10 to 15 series may come to mind. Different series are important to different people. That is why this Kaleidoscope initiative led by Ray Langstone is so unique. He tallied from anyone who responded to his request to name their top lost TV shows. What did he do with this information and how did he acquire it? It’s fascinating and also interesting to see where some of our favourite series landed on the list! Just to make it even more interesting, we added some audio from missing programs to illustrate some of the choices made for the list.

Next, we have an incredible conversation with Jake Berger of the BBC Archive Development Team. I interviewed him while I was in the UK at the BBC Broadcast Centre. There, we spoke in-depth about the wonderful BBC Genome Project and also some other things that have been going on in that group. This is very much worth a listen; there is some truly remarkable information in this interview.

So much content, this is a long episode! Please enjoy!

If you have feedback or questions you would like to have read on the podcast or general inquiries, please contact us at feedback@fromthearchive.co.uk. We would love to hear from you! This podcast is a co-production between From the Archive: A British Television Blog and Kaleidoscope. Thank you for listening.

It’s been an exciting year for the return of missing material and one of the great ways to see some of this material is to go to the BFI’s Missing Believed Wiped event on the 16th of December! We take time in this episode to preview some of the awesomeness that is going to be shown this year!

We talk with two gentlemen who do not need introductions but we will do so anyway: Dick Fiddy TV Historian for the BFI who founded the Missing Believed Wiped event in 1993. We talk about the recent recoveries that will be shown at the event but also what else is going on at the BFI. At the time of publication of this podcast, the BFI is wrapping up its Sydney Newman season and we can a sneak peek at a couple of other events that have yet to be formally announced.

We then talk to Ed Stradling. Ed is a freelance Producer who has done extensive work telling the story of DOCTOR WHO through some of its most famous periods through documentaries but in this episode, we talk about his passion for missing British television material. He has been looking through countless hours of domestic recordings. What is he looking for? What is he going to have for us to watch at Missing Believed Wiped!

Finally, this podcast has been going for a year! Your host is celebrating this by traveling to the UK and will be at Missing Believed Wiped! If you are going to be there, let me know! I would love to say hi!

If you have feedback or questions you would like to have read on the podcast or general inquiries, please contact us at feedback@fromthearchive.co.uk. We would love to hear from you! This podcast is a co-production between From the Archive: A British Television Blog and Kaleidoscope. Thank you for listening.

Back before television, radio was King or perhaps in Australia it was Queen! The first part of this episode is an interview with the Managing Director of Grace Gibson Productions Bruce Ferrier. Bruce now runs a production company that started in the 1940s by a woman who hailed from Texas and moved to Australia starting a legacy of commercially and critically successful radio productions. These productions stood the test of time and Bruce is going to talk to us about Grace Gibson herself and the tremendous output of the studio. It wouldn’t be a Kaleidoscope podcast if we couldn’t talk about the current state of the Grace Gibson archives, how master recordings are stored and if any restoration work is being carried out on them.

We then talk with Researcher Richard Bignell as we talk about the 50th anniversary of Season 5 of “Doctor Who”. We focus on this season because there has always been something special about it. Richard gives his opinion why plus we talk about the return of missing material and the research he is doing for his next issue of “Nothing at the End of the Lane”.

Then, we talk about the recent find of the soundtrack to an “Adam Adamant Lives!”. We interview Tim Emblem-English who found the recording about how this find was almost completely looked over. We also scoured through the Kaleidoscope archives to bring out a rare interview with Verity Lambert as she shares some of her thoughts on the production of “Adam Adamant Lives!”.

Finally, we share some exciting news about what we are planning to do this episode of “Adam Adamant Lives!” to coincide with the 30th anniversary of Kaleidoscope and what we are planning on doing may affect other shows where soundtracks only exist. Don’t worry, any examples we provide in this episode we know need to be cleaned up! Lots to listen to in this episode!

If you have feedback or questions you would like to have read on the podcast or general inquiries, please contact us at feedback@fromthearchive.co.uk. We would love to hear from you! This podcast is a co-production between From the Archive: A British Television Blog and Kaleidoscope. Thank you for listening.

We are pleased as punch in this episode of our podcast as we are able to have a conversation with Sue Malden! Sue was named the first BBC Archive Selector back in 1978 and her work revolutionised the way programs have been selected and kept in archives for not only the BBC but the UK and beyond. Our conversation goes a lot into the archive selection process she put together plus we talk about the work she is doing in the field now. Of course we touch on her project she initiated to track down what might have happened to episodes of lost BBC series. She eventually chose DOCTOR WHO but she talks about some of the other series she considered looking into first. It’s a not only a great conversation about archive television but it’s a great conversation about television archiving.

We next move onto a quick conversation with BBC South Producer Richard Latto who recently returned an episode of HUGH AND I called “The Girl on the Poster” from 1964. He talks about where the print has been and how this isn’t the first time the film collector who owns this print has helped out the BBC Archives. We talk with Oliver Crocker who wrote “All Memories Great & Small” from Miwk Publishing about the passing of Robert Hardy. He not only shares great memories of interviewing Robert Hardy for his book but also shares some personal audio of the two talking. Finally, we check in with Chris Perry who gives us all the information for the upcoming Kaleidoscope event on 2/9/17 at Birmingham City University. It’s going to be a fantastic event with great guests and rare material. We share all the information!

If you have feedback or questions you would like to have read on the podcast or general inquiries, please contact us at feedback@fromthearchive.co.uk. We would love to hear from you! This podcast is a co-production between From the Archive: A British Television Blog and Kaleidoscope. Thank you for listening.

We are very excited to present an EXTENDED LENGTH edition of this podcast. We have many rare clips included in it that we are proud to be able to present here. First and foremost, we continue our conversation with Tristan Brittain-Dissont. Tristan is the archivist for the Tony Hancock Appreciation Society. He brought a ton of wonderful and rare Tony Hancock audio clips that put some perspective not only on his career and his work habits but also the rise of the comedy writing legend duo Galton & Simpson. Some of the clips included are bits cut out of HANCOCK HALF HOUR radio episodes such as “Fred’s Pie Stall”, we have audio recorded by Tony himself that he used for learning his lines and we include a wonderfully long segment clocking in over 7 minutes from the rare radio series CALLING ALL FORCES that features Tony in this clip. There are some great clips from the series HAPPY GO LUCKY featured too.

Just as we were working on this episode, we got call from Tristan who told us more material of interest had been found and would we mind talking about them on this podcast? The answer was, of course, YES! So, we have a quick conversation with Martin Gibbons who is the Social Media Manager for the Tony Hancock Appreciation Society. He dazzled us with audio clips recorded from the original transmission of the first broadcast episode of THE BLACKPOOL SHOW from June 1966 where Tony does a little singing and then forgets the first act he is supposed to introduce! We share an audio clip from another recently found domestic audio recording of COMEDY PLAYHOUSE starring Harry H. Corbett. Perhaps the most baffling is the material discovered from off-air audio recordings of STEPTOE AND SON from 1963. This is really worth listening to and makes you wonder about the completeness of the versions released on DVD.

Finally we say farewell to Alan Simpson who has given many of us so many laughs over the years with his writing partner Ray Galton. We put together a little tribute to him using audio in his own words along with audio from Ray Galton and even Dennis Main Wilson. Equally exciting is we tie it all back to where their career started by playing a recording of the first joke they ever sold to the BBC. We are extremely proud to present this episode and we hope you enjoy it! It may not be able to all be heard in one sitting and it certainly needs listening to more than once!

If you have feedback or questions you would like to have read on the podcast or general inquiries, please contact us at feedback@fromthearchive.co.uk. We would love to hear from you! This podcast is a co-production between From the Archive: A British Television Blog and Kaleidoscope. Thank you for listening.

We celebrate one of the most influential comedies that has ever come out of the BBC, HANCOCK’S HALF HOUR but even more so we celebrate Tony Hancock himself. This episode features the first of a two part interview with the Archivist of the Tony Hancock Appreciation Society, Tristan Brittain-Dissont. He brought some incredible audio to share over the course of the two episodes. This episode we hear a recently discovered crystal clear clip from THE HORROR SERIAL that has only previously existed as a very poor audio copy and an audio clip from the recently found soundtrack to THE ITALIAN MAID. Plus information of how it was found.

We then catch up with Chris Perry over the recently announced discoveries that have been announced by Kaleidoscope including some exclusive audio clips to the recently recovered Z CARS episode TRUTH OR DARE and a clip from MY PAL BOB. We also talk about Kaleidoscope’s new online research tool culminating in over 30 years of research into British television, TV Brain and how everyone can have access to this powerful database.

If you have feedback or questions you would like to have read on the podcast or general inquiries, please contact us at feedback@fromthearchive.co.uk. We would love to hear from you! This podcast is a co-production between From the Archive: A British Television Blog and Kaleidoscope. Thank you for listening.

Episode 2 of our podcast, From the Archive, picks up with the second part of our interview with Kaleidoscope CEO Chris Perry. In the previous episode, we talked at great lengths about missing episodes, television preservation and archives. This episode is no different! We talk a lot about the finds that Kaleidoscope announced this year including a streak of ABC/BBC material announced in October, we talk a little about the double-edge sword a prominent series like DOCTOR WHO does to the overall publicity of missing episodes and we talk a lot about the famous Bob Monkhouse archive. We have a lively and controversial discussion about TILL DEATH US DO PART that may go against the norm. There may be some language used in historical context on this program. The views and opinions of this conversation are those of people on the podcast and do not necessarily reflect those of Kaleidoscope or From the Archive. After the interview, there is reflection about 80 years of BBC television and some letters are read from the RADIO TIMES regarding the public taking to the new Doctor Patrick Troughton during the broadcast run of POWER OF THE DALEKS.

If you have feedback or questions you would like to have read on the podcast or general inquiries, please contact us at feedback@fromthearchive.co.uk. We would love to hear from you! This podcast is a co-production between From the Archive: A British Television Blog and Kaleidoscope. Thank you for listening.

Introducing the new British television podcast, From the Archive! We celebrate all things British television with an emphasis of television preservation, locating missing material and restoration. Our first episode is the first part of an interview with Chris Perry, CEO of Kaleidoscope. We talk about Kaleidoscope’s inception but really focus on their role as a preservationists of British television plus their role in finding missing material. There is a lot of discussion about missing material plus so much more which is why it can’t be contained in one episode! We hope you enjoy!

If you have feedback or questions you would like to have read on the podcast or general inquiries, please contact us at feedback@fromthearchive.co.uk. This podcast is a co-production between From the Archive: A British Television Blog and Kaleidoscope. Thank you for listening to it.